This photo reminded me how unnecessarily thick the head/bezel is on this. I think Firelight mentioned this before, it would have been better with a thinner head, or a larger lens in the same size head with thinner walls.
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Here’s a comparison to my Surlight (Supfire F5):
The Supfire has a slightly thinner head but a much wider lens.
And the Supfire has an aprox. 5-10% wider beam at full flood.
Wowtac:
Head diameter 34mm
Lens diameter: 21.5mm
Supfire:
Head diameter 33mm
Lens diameter: 25.8mm
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Another big complaint I have with the Wowtac is there needed to be a band of knurling on the head. This really ticks me off for using it single handed, pushing out isn’t so bad but pulling back in is, it’s a super smooth slippery surface.
I’m going to end up putting some type of grip tape on the head (skateboard tape) or better yet maybe the Red Cat rubberized grip tape they have for handguns.
A follow-up: I sent back an A3S because the zoom was hard to push out and wanted to draw back (and the other way for pulling it in). I really wanted one (that worked right), so with the encouragement of someone who said he’d fix it if I got another bad one, I ordered one, Amazon got it to me in two days (although I went with free shipping), and it works fine.
I like the A3S. Best UI of any stock zoom light I’ve tried yet, combined with a nice artifact-free beam. As an added plus you can swap the body tube to make it into a much more compact 18350 light.
Biggest downside of this light is the head is much too wide. It’s quite a bit wider than its lens and makes the light too wide to be comfortable for me for EDC pocket-carry.
I really liked this one at first, but there was a kind of novelty effect to it. It’s got great distance when zoomed all the way or, but when you pull back the head, most of that is lost. So as I see it, it’s great for a narrow distance and for wide, even near to middle range. But I hardly ever use it because it isn’t a good general, all purpose light. I like my Thorfire TK15 better.
One final comment on the Wowtac A3S ( forgive me if I’ve noted this before; my memory is getting a little foggy) . It came to mind the other night when I pulled it out of the drawer and used it for a little while. Wowtac needs to make one change on the UI that would make it more enjoyable to use. As it is now, whatever level the light is on, when you press and hold the switch to go up a level, it will go back to the lower level and then come back up. So if you are at medium and want to go to high, you have to cycle through low and medium to get there. It’s just a little annoying and something I would think could be changed fairly easily.
I’m very tempted to buy this light - I like the UI and the beam quality.
What holds me back is the width of the head. The widest head of any of the flashlights that I currently carry is 27mm. I don’t know if my pocket can accommodate a 34mm head diameter. If I can’t carry it clipped to the top of my back pocket, I might not carry it at all.
I got two A3's sitting around for a while now. I got a better technique using over the last couple days that cracked open threads I couldn't get open before. Tried it tonight on each of the A3's with no luck. I clamp the light between 2 pine boards in a bench top hobby vise, then use a good strap wrench. The slippery front piece, combined with the thin flush front bezel is not good for my setup. Worked great on the blue Loctite of the GT Micro. Might try some heat next.
Here's the GT Micro cracked open:
I think I'm seeing blue in the bezel gap on one of the A3's so hoping it's blue. I got open up a red Loctite's SRK tailcap last night with this setup.
